Monday, June 27, 2011

We are launching a completely redesigned Rokland.com on Saturday, July 2, 2011. In addition to an expanded selection of products, FREE SHIPPING on ALL items, and lower prices, we will also have a new coupon code system (meaning more discounts for you).

Right now you can get a coupon to use this Saturday and Sunday on our new site simply by following us on Twitter. What’s the worse that could happen? We tweet more discount codes to you in the future?? Maybe you can’t get something for nothing these days, but at least you can get something simply by following us on Twitter…note that we will be sending out coupon codes to all of our followers on Saturday, so you will not get one right away after following us. This is to avoid confusion with people attempting to use the coupon codes on our existing site right now.

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Update: AWUS036H does not work on Chromebooks, only SUSE 11.4 (Celadon) running Kernel 2.6.37.6-0.5-default, aka the Google Chrome OS. Chromebooks run a browser-only version which does not have any drivers built-in, and at this time driver installation by users is not possible.

If you need a long range Wi-Fi solution for Chrome OS, checkout the AWUS036H from Alfa Network. This has long been a popular long range wireless networking choice for Windows and Backtrack users, and now we have confirmed it is compatible with SUSE 11.4 (Celadon) running Kernel 2.6.37.6-0.5-default. Here is a list of all of the steps we had to go through to get it working:

1. Connect Alfa adapter to computer

A short list, eh? That’s right, it was plug and play on our test machine, with no driver installation needed. We ran the latest live CD available here (download completed Friday June 17th, 2011). It appeared to operate at or near full power, detecting a number of Wi-Fi networks and we were able to connect to our signal and go online. Here are some screenshots- we apologize for the poor quality, Chrome has no screenshot program so we took actual pictures using the dated camera on an iPhone 3GS.

Does this mean it will work on Google’s new Chromebooks? We don’t know, but it is doubtful because early reports are that Chromebooks are shipping with virtually no drivers preinstalled, and the live CD version of Chrome OS obviously has the driver for this product built-in. We may look into that further, but for now, those of you running SUSE Linux release 11.4 (Chrome OS) from a live CD should be able to use the Alfa AWUS036H for Wi-Fi connectivity. Our test machine was a Toshiba Satellite A-105. Please feel free to post your experiences with Chrome OS and Chromebooks here in our comments section to help other users searching for a solution.